


Pressure

by Princex_N



Category: Psych
Genre: An overabundance of italics, Autism, Autistic Shawn, Gen, Meltdown, Neurodiversity, Sensory Overload, Stimming, nonverbal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 16:54:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4795073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princex_N/pseuds/Princex_N
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shawn's in a back corner of the police department, he's trying to get this case solved and over with so that he can go home, but he's not getting anywhere. Nobody is getting anywhere and it's terrible. He alternates between curling in a chair and rocking, and pacing back and forth, hands flapping wildly. </p><p>There are too many people, too many footsteps, voices, sounds, faces, movements, eyes, way too fucking many.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pressure

Shawn's skin is burning.

He is in a small, personal kind of hell, and if he doesn't get out of here soon, he thinks he's going to lose his mind. 

He's in a back corner of the police department, he's trying to get this case solved and over with so that he can go home, but he's not getting anywhere. Nobody is getting  _anywhere_ and it's terrible. He alternates between curling in a chair and rocking, and pacing back and forth, hands flapping wildly. Gus sits a few feet away and watches, concern lining his face because he's always been great at noticing when things are getting too much. 

There are too many people, too many footsteps, voices, sounds, faces, movements, eyes, way too fucking many.

Shawn makes a small, choked angry noise in the back of his throat, and Gus takes a step forward, "Maybe we should go? And come back later?" He suggests, but Shawn shakes his head. Leaving now won't actually solve anything, he's still going to have to come back here and solve this case, so he might as well stick around and get it over and done with and then he can go home and  _stay_ home, but he can't do it. Nothing is connecting right, there's too much information, nothing makes any sense. 

 _Damn it_. 

Someone is saying something, but it's all noise, blending into the background with the _other_ noise and Shawn sits down again, slamming down into a chair and presses his hands over his ears because he doesn't want to  _be here_ anymore, but he's not sure if he has the option to leave. The sounds feel like they're burrowing, into his ears into his skin down his throat. Jesus, this is terrible. 

Someone shouts something, there's another slightly muffled noise, someone's hand wraps around Shawn's arm. 

Shawn makes a sound, deep and guttural in his throat, and wrenches his arm away and presses in on himself, he knows his legs won't fit on this chair, so he doesn't try to curl up the way he really wants to, but he curls his upper body down and presses his hands against his ears harder and his arms against his chest the best he can. He rocks harder. There are voices, muffled, but not nearly muffled enough, there are tears in his eyes and pushing past his tightly shut eyelids, Shawn thinks he's going to fucking  _vomit_. 

He has to remind himself that he's in public, he's in the  _place_ where he _works_ , because his shirt is brushing against his body in all the wrong ways and he wants to take it off, wants to take off his shoes and probably also his pants, but he knows that he can't do that. That's not an option, and he tries to twist his body, tries to find  _some_ position where the fabric isn't torture, but he's not doing a very good job and so he stops and just has to sit there in his clothes and whimper. It's pathetic. He knows that he is. 

Shawn doesn't have any problems with the fact that he's autistic, but  _damn_ if this doesn't  _suck._

He's trying to calm himself down, but it's not really working. His mind is too frayed to even come up with one of his movie metaphors, there's just nothing but discomfort and pain and uncomfortable. 

He eventually notices that the noise is dimming down. He doesn't know what's actually happening, he's hidden behind closed eyelids and the palms of his hands, but he does know that it's getting quieter. He tries to focus on that, the quieter and the rocking motion of his body. 

And things start to calm down. 

His rocking loses the frantic intensity, his breathing gets easier, the tears stop, he lets his hands relax a little, so that they're still covering his ears (just in case) but they're not pressed down as hard. 

He risks opening his eyes.

Legs.

He glances up and sees Gus, planted firmly in between Shawn and the rest of the room, shielding him from the noise and motion and grabby hands of nosy people. Thank God for Gus. 

Gus isn't looking at Shawn, but Lassiter and Juliet are. The latter makes a movement towards him when she notices that he's reached some semblance of calm. But she stops herself before she gets close. Thank God for Juliet too. 

Gus notices and twists around, glancing back at Shawn, and asks, "Are you okay?" 

Shawn shrugs. 

"We're going to leave, we'll be back later." Gus says, and Shawn opens his mouth, tries to say "Stop that, I'm fine, it's okay," but nothing comes out. He looks up at Gus's face, and Shawn can tell that even if he  _could_ find the voice and words to say things, that Gus wouldn't listen to him anyway. Shawn closes his mouth, sighs a little through his nose, and stands. He returns Gus's look with an over exaggerated put-upon expression, and rolls his eyes in Juliet's direction in hopes of wiping the blatant panic and concern off her face. 

It doesn't really work, but shes smiles anyway, so whatever.

Gus directs him down the hall, and Shawn glances around, trying to gauge the responses of the other people in the building. Only the closest few are looking at him with varying degrees of concern, the people further away just look confused, like someone told them to shut up but no one said why. Shawn thinks of Lassie's rigid posture and pinched expression, and smirks. 

Shawn is ushered into the blueberry, and Gus shuts off the radio volume before he drives off. 

"You can come back later." Gus says, like he's not being totally unreasonable. But Shawn's tired (Good luck getting him to admit it though), and there are a multitude of reasons why he can't really complain about being herded out of the station and towards home. So he doesn't.

He just sits back and enjoys the ride (smooth, because Shawn isn't pressing Gus to go faster for once), and when they get to Shawn's house, Shawn sprawls out on his couch while Gus goes off to find his weighted blanket, and he tries to let himself enjoy the moments of peace while they last. 

**Author's Note:**

> I figure that most people know about Shawn's autism because he doesn't seem like the kind of person who would bother to hide it, but I do imagine that this is the first time he's ever had a meltdown in front of them. 
> 
> [My Tumblr](http://www.princex-n.tumblr.com)


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